The Ram Temple in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh will be completed by 2025 but the premises will be opened to the public from 2023 for the devotees to have a darshan of Lord Ram, sources have said today. The construction work of the temple started a year back on August 5 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi had inaugurated the construction after performing holy rituals.
According to sources, pilgrims will be allowed to visit the temple by the end of 2023 alongside the building work. The temple will have three floors and five mandaps or pavilions and no steel or bricks will be used in the temple.
"The temple design was finalized considering the changes in the last three decades and the aspirations of devotees," sources said.
The entire complex of the temple will be completed by 2025 and would be done at an expense of Rs 1,000 crore. The temple Trust has already got donations from across the country in the abundance of Rs 3,000 crore. The temple area is assumed to occupy an area of 110 acres, which is way larger than the original that was estimated at 67 acres. The Trust is taking up an excess land in the vicinity of the existing complex.
A temple Trust source informed, “All five mandaps of the Ground Floor and the Garb Griha will be complete by the end of 2023 and laying of stone on the first floor of the temple will also be complete by then. The idols of the Ram Lalla deity will be shifted to the new temple and the Garb Griha in 2023. There is a difference in the completion of the temple and Darshan, and we plan to open the area for the visit of devotees by the end of 2023.”
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The work of carving on the stones and the rest of the Temple’s complex will remain in progress till 2025.
“The construction work of the temple is progressing according to the plan,” said the temple trust source.
Details of the Temple:-
- The temple's length is 360 feet, width 235 feet and each floor will be 20 feet high.
- With 160 columns on the ground floor, the temple will have 132 columns on the first floor and 74 columns on the second floor.
- Temple's Sanctum Sanctorum or "Shikhar" is assumed to be 161 feet high from the ground floor.
- Temple's stone and marbles are being brought from Rajasthan.
- Four lakh cubic feet of stone will be engraved in the temple.
- The purpose to construct the temple is to conserve and develop the heritage structures like "Kuber Tila" and "Sita Koop".
- The temple's complex is said to constitute a pilgrim facilitation centre, museum, archives, research centre, auditorium, cattle shed, a place for religious ceremonies, an administrative building and accommodations for priests.
- The soil investigation report has disclosed that the debris is filled up to a depth of 12 metres and excavation work is on to clear that up and then fill it with concrete.
- The temple contains three floors and is likely to have a Ram Darbar on the first floor.
- A museum inside the temple will have a history of the temple construction and manuscripts of Ram Kathas from various countries.
The land was under dispute for years after the 16th-century Babri Masjid was demolished in 1992 by Hindu activists and hundreds of leaders from BJP who believed that it was built on the ruins of the ancient temple for Lord Rama.
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The Supreme Court in 2019 passed the disputed land to the building of a Ram Temple and directed that the Muslim community will be allotted an alternative land for constructing a mosque.